The Muslim Brotherhood:
The Many Faces of Their Majesty's Service

July 17The July 3 removal of Egyptian President Dr. Mohamed Morsi, by a combination of forces that included public opposition by a large section of the Egyptian people and the Egyptian military, has brought into focus the historical role of the Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan al-Muslimeen, or MB). Morsi, a leading member of the MB, was the chairman of the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) when it was founded by the Brotherhood in the wake of the 2011 Egyptian revolution that ousted President Hosni Mubarak. Morsi won the June 2012 presidential election as the FJP candidate, and was in power for a year.

Morsi's removal was openly welcomed in Saudi Arabia, one of the major funders of Muslim Brotherhood activities throughout the world, but condemned strongly by Qatar, which had been the most generous financier trying to keep the Morsi government afloat. Morsi's downfall is also lamented by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his pro-Brotherhood AKP party. It is evident that Erdogan had developed a close ideological relationship with Morsi and the Brotherhood in Egypt.

Does this mean a split occurred within the Brotherhood over the Morsi regime's rule, or misrule, in Egypt? That is highly unlikely. Since its inception in Egypt in 1928, this international outfit has had many faces:

In 1928, Egypt was under British control, although not a British colony, and the Brotherhood built links with British intelligence and worked to help the British.

It formed an alliance with the Nazis during World War II.

It then returned to serve British interests once more, trying oust the nationalist regime of President Gamal Abdel Nasser.

It was a key player in the rise of the Islamic jihadist groups that helped the West to push Soviet troops out of Afghanistan.

It allowed its followers to attack the West's assets, culminating in the 9/11 attack on American soil.

It is now back again serving the West by providing manpower for "regime change" in the Arab world and North Africa, and undermining Russian interests in Central Asia.

This circuitous route has hidden the Brotherhood's real objective from many, while enabling it to secure help from various international intelligence agencies, particularly British, and thus to spread its wings further in the Arab world, North Africa, Central Asia, and Europe.

The MB, which is an underground and secretive organization in most countries, of course requires money to operate, and needs protection. This makes it vulnerable to penetration by various intelligence agencies and also dependent on its financial patrons, such as Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Qatar's expenditure of bucketfuls of money to prop up Morsi & Co. allowed that country to get a grip on the Egyptian President, the FJP, and Egypt as a whole, thus expanding its influence beyond the shores of the Arabian peninsula. In addition, the Dubai website Nuqudy reported that ever since Qatar's announcement of a billion dollar loan to Egypt, the opposition to Morsi claimed that he was planning to lease or even sell the Suez Canal to the Qatari leaders.[1] The opposition's charges stem from the financial desperation of the Egyptian government, which is in vital need of cash and foreign reserves due to its $22.5 billion budget deficit, the Dubai-based report said.

The Early Faces of the Muslim Brotherhood

Long before the Muslim Brotherhood was formed, the British had taken control of Egypt. Following the construction of the Suez Canal by the French in 1869, which improved Britain's connection with the Indian subcontinent under British colonial rule, and cut down the travel time from London to Bombay (now Mumbai), Britain had been looking for an opportunity to gain control of the canal, to serve its geostrategic interests.

At the time, the canal was under control of the French and Khedive Ismail Pasha, the ruler of Egypt, with Britain holding a minority share. The opportunity sought by London popped up in 1875, when it became obvious that the Khedive had gotten himself into serious economic difficulties. He approached Britain in an effort to raise money, and with Baron Rothschild dishing out the money to his good friend, British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, Britain got hold of the Khedive's shares in the Suez Canal Company. Overnight, the British went from minority shareholder to controlling shareholder.

But the money that the Khedive got for the deal was not enough to last long. By 1882, Egypt's economic situation reached another crisis, and this time, the British and French governments initiated a "stewardship" of the finances of Egypt. This was little more than joint colonization, as British and French "experts" were sent to various ministries to take control of day-to-day business. The Khedive's unwillingness to agree to such terms was rewarded by his forced abdication and replacement by his son Tawfiq. The small number of revolts against the Europeans were repressed by Britain with an iron hand.

In 1928, when an Egyptian schoolteacher named Hasan al-Banna formed the Ikhwan al-Muslimeen, Egypt was a protectorate of Britain, which controlled its finances, government personnel, and armed forces. In matters concerning the international status of Egypt, decisions were taken in London; but where the internal administration of the country was concerned, the Consul General's opinions were usually decisive. Although throughout the occupation, the facade of an Egyptian government, under the Khedives, was retained, British advisors attached to the various ministries were more influential than their ministers, while the Consul General steadily increased his control over the whole administrative machine.

In this milieu, the Brotherhood was set up as a religious secret society known publicly for its emphasis on Islamic education and for its charitable activities. But soon after it was formed, a British intelligence agent, Freya Stark, appeared on the scene in Egypt.

Stark, a self-proclaimed Jew-hater, was a wandering agent of British intelligence during the Second World War. In her book East Is West (1945), she compared "Fascist Rome," "Zionist Jerusalem," and the "British Empire." She wrote: "The skein of the Middle East in all these centuries has gathered threads of very many colours; and no return to simple black and white will ever be possible againwhether it be the dream of Fascist Rome or Zionist Jerusalem, or that British form of empire which has become obsolete."

Stark served with the British in the Middle East to help counteract Nazi influence in Aden, Cairo, and Baghdad. Later she was also sent on missions to the United States, Canada, and India. Once in Cairo, she soon set up the Ikhwan al-Hurriyah (Brotherhood of Freedom), ostensibly to keep track of the growing German activities in North Africa. Soon she made contact with the Brotherhood and became a source for London on the many different political movements that were springing up in Egypt, with the help of Banna and his people.

In other words, since its very inception, the Muslim Brotherhood has been a stool pigeon for British intelligence.

But this was not the only face of Banna's "Islamic" outfit, and the MB soon moved into its next phase, developing links with the Nazis.

Hitler with a Beard

As the Nazis rose to power in the 1930s, the Brotherhood was in the ascent in British-controlled Egypt. According to John Loftus, former prosecutor with the U.S. State Department and a former Army intelligence officer, in addition to its initial focus on social welfare and Sharia law, the Brotherhood attracted followers in Egypt and in the broader Middle East because of its anti-Jewish stand. By the end of World War II, the MB could boast of half a million members. Its founder, al-Banna, helped to distribute Arabic translations of Hitler's Mein Kampf and The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, thus fueling the rising hostility toward Jews and their Western supporters. Banna expressed his zeal in these words: "To a nation that perfects the industry of death and which knows how to die nobly, God gives proud life in this world and eternal grace in the life to come," and, "We are not afraid of death, we desire it.... Let us die in redemption for Muslims."

"Mr. al-Banna was a devout admirer of a young Austrian writer named Adolf Hitler. His letters to Hitler were so supportive that when Hitler came to power in the 1930s, he had Nazi intelligence make contact with al-Banna to see if they could work together," Loftus said.[2] The Brotherhood's political and military alliance with Nazi Germany blossomed into formal state visits, de facto ambassadors, and overt and covert joint ventures.

When World War II broke out, Banna worked to firm up his alliances with Hitler and Mussolini. He sent them letters and emissaries, and urged them to assist him in his struggle against the British and the westernized regime of Egypt's King Farouq. The intelligence service of the Muslim Brotherhood, even while penetrated by British intelligence, established a spy network for Nazi Germany throughout the Arab world, collecting information on the heads of the regime in Cairo and on the movements of the British Army, offering this and more to the Germans in return for closer relations.

Loftus also spoke about another prominent member of the Brotherhood, Haj Mohammad Effendi Amin al-Husayni, who was both the organization's representative in Palestine and the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem (a position that was appointed by the British, while Palestine was under British occupation, 1917-48). Before becoming Grand Mufti in 1921, al-Husayni had been a principal organizer of the 1920 "Bloody Passover" massacre of Jews who were praying at Jerusalem's Wailing Wall.

While the Grand Mufti's Nazi connection is widely known, his rise to power was British-Zionist handiwork. Though himself a Jew, Sir Herbert Samuel, the British High Commissioner of the Palestine Mandate and a Zionist (his appointment as High Commissioner was welcomed by the Zionists at the time), appointed al-Husayni in spite of vigorous protests from most Palestinian Arabs, as well as from Jewish settlers.

Following a failed attempt to create a pro-Nazi uprising in Iraq, the Grand Mufti fled to Europe to organize Arab forces disguised as SS divisions for the Third Reich. Though a war criminal, the Grand Mufti and his troops were spirited away from prosecution in Egypt by the British secret service, Loftus noted.[3]

The first known direct contact between British officials and the Brotherhood came in 1941. Immediately thereafter, the Brotherhood began its next phase: the establishment of the widely feared "secret apparatus." Beginning in 1941-42, the Ikhwan set up this private intelligence arm, which rapidly became a widespread terrorist, paramilitary, and intelligence branch of the Brotherhood.[4]

Mark Curtis points out in his book (see footnote 2) that by 1942, Britain had definitely begun to finance the Brotherhood. On May 18, 1942, British Embassy officials held a meeting with Egyptian Finance Minister Amin Osman Pasha, in which relations with the Brotherhood were discussed, and a number of points were agreed upon. One was that "subsidies from the Wafd [Party]a moderate nationalist partyto the Ikhwan al Muslimeen would be discreetly paid by the [Egyptian] government and they would require some financial assistance in this matter from the [British] Embassy." In addition, the Egyptian government "would introduce reliable agents into the Ikhwan to keep a close watch on activities and would let us [the British] have the information obtained from such agents. We, for our part, would keep the government in touch with information obtained from British sources."

The Cold War Face

The defeat of the Nazis and the assassination of al-Banna in 1949, after Brotherhood members had assassinated the Egyptian prime minister, did not prevent the Brotherhood's growth in Egypt. Through a complex process, the group's relations with Britain continued to flourish. In October 1951, the MB elected as its new leader a former judge, Hassan al-Hodeibi, who made known his opposition to the violence of 1945-49. In 1951, the Brotherhood called for a jihad against the British, including attacks on Britons and their property. But, it was a dog-and-pony show.

Curtis writes:

"A British embassy report from Cairo in late 1951 stated that the Brotherhood 'possess[es] a terrorist organisation of long-standing which has never been broken by police action', despite the recent arrests. However, the report otherwise downplayed the Brothers' intentions towards the British, stating that they were 'planning to send terrorists into the Canal Zone' but 'they do not intend to put their organisation as such into action against His Majesty's forces'. Another report noted that although the Brotherhood had been responsible for some attacks against the British, this was probably due to 'indiscipline', and it 'appears to conflict with the policy of the leaders.' "

In December 1951, Curtis notes, the files show that British officials were trying to arrange a direct meeting with Hodeibi. Several meetings were held with one of his advisors, Farkhani Bey, about whom little is known, although he was apparently not himself a member of the Brotherhood. The indications from the declassified British files are that Brotherhood leaders, despite their public calls for attacks on the British, were perfectly prepared to meet them in private. By this time, the Egyptian government was offering Hodeibi "enormous bribes" to keep the Brotherhood from engaging in further violence against the regime, according to the British Foreign Office.

In July 1952, a group of young nationalist army officers, committed to overthrowing the Egyptian monarchy and its British advisors, seized power in a coup, and proclaimed themselves the Council for the Revolutionary Command (CRC), with Gen. Muhammad Naguib as chairman, and Col. Gamal Abdel Nasser as vice-chairman. The coup was a joint project of many foreign intelligence networks in conjunction with Egyptian Army officers, especially British, American, and French-linked forces, along with core Egyptian nationalists. However, some analysts claim that General Naguib was closely linked to the Brotherhood, as was Anwar Sadat, who later became President of Egypt and was assassinated. When Finance Minister Amin Osman Pasha was assassinated in 1946, Sadat was arrested for his murder.

Curtis points out that the Muslim Brotherhood, pleased to see the back of the King's pro-Western regime, initially supported the coup, and indeed had direct links with the Free Officers. One of them, Sadat, later described his role as the pre-coup intermediary between the Free Officers and Hassan al-Banna. "He was clearly one of the Free Officers on whose association with them the Brethren counted to help further their political aims," Britain's Ambassador to Cairo, Sir Richard Beaumont, later wrote, after Sadat had succeeded Nasser as President in 1970.

The Brotherhood's problem was Prime Minister Gamal Abdel Nasser. They considered him and his supporters as insufficiently devout, but Nasser was popular and was hated by the British.

Nasser responded to the hostilities of the Brotherhood by charging them with having set up an armed organization to seize power by force. On Oct. 26, 1954, a gunman shot at Nasser as he delivered a speech in Alexandria. Nasser's government blamed the Brotherhood, and thousands of its members were rounded up. The banning of the Brotherhood was a setback for the Western powers that wanted Nasser out, or dead.

On the other hand, Nasser was trying to stabilize Egypt by undermining subversive forces such as the Brotherhood and its British ally. He moved quickly to modernize and industrialize the country, and to assert his nation's independence. He reached out to the United States and to the World Bank to help him finance the construction of the Aswan Dam, but when they both refused, he was forced to turn to the Soviet Union.

On July 26, 1956, Nasser did what should have been done decades before: He evicted the British colonials from the Suez Canal zone. "On 26 July in Alexandria, in a calm speech, but one that was described by London as hysterical, Nasser made his nationalization announcement, which from a strictly legal point of view was no more 'than a decision to buy out the shareholders.' That night in Downing Street, [British Prime Minister Anthony] Eden's bitterness at the decision was not concealed from his guests.... Eden summoned a council of war, which continued until 4 a.m. An emotional Prime Minister told his colleagues that Nasser could not be allowed, in Eden's phrase, 'to have his hand on our windpipe.' The 'Muslim Mussolini' must be 'destroyed.' Eden added: 'I want him removed and I don't give a damn if there's anarchy and chaos in Egypt.... Former Prime Minister Churchill had fueled Eden's fire by counseling him about the Egyptians, saying, 'Tell them if we have any more of their cheek we will set the Jews on them and drive them into the gutter, from which they should have never emerged.' "[5]

Sir Anthony Nutting, a member of the Foreign Office at the time, recalls an irate phone call from Eden who was upset at the slow pace of the campaign against Nasser. Eden raged, "What's all this poppycock you've sent me? ... What's all this nonsense about isolating Nasser or 'neutralizing' him, as you call it? I want him destroyed, can't you understand? I want him murdered....' "[6]

The Present Face of the MB:
Hired Assassins of the West and Saudi Arabia

Nasser's arrest of its leaders and banning of the organization did not kill off the Brotherhood in Egypt. It had already sunk its roots deep inside the country, and as Sadat's case shows, it had its facilitators inside the Army as well. One reason perhaps was that the Egyptian population was not fully aware of who the controllers of the Brotherhood were, and considered it as an indigenous outfit that opposed the Western colonial forces. The Brotherhood's formal opposition to the Israeli occupation of Palestine could have been yet another factor in its survival.

The other reason, of course, was the intensification of the Cold War, and the Brotherhood was considered by a section of anglophile Western policymakers as the poison that could kill the Soviet Union. This was exhibited in the 1980s, when the Soviet Army invaded Afghanistan, and the West and the Saudis, among other Sunni Persian Gulf Arabs, brought in killers waving the Islamic Jihad flag. These were the Brotherhood's followers, working under different organizational structures.

Nonetheless, what Nasser's banning of the Brotherhood did accomplish was the internationalization of the Brotherhood, bringing under its rubric various militant Sunni groups widely identified as the Salafis and Saudi Arabia's poison pill, the Wahhabis. These forces were very much in the spotlight during the recent rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, following the dismantling of the Mubarak regime, which put Morsi, a U.S.-educated Egyptian engineer, at the helm in Cairo.

Following Nasser's banning of the outfit, most of the Brothers ended up in Saudi Arabia, but not all. Some fled to Syria, where students returning from Egypt in the 1930s had founded a branch. Eventually, the Syrian government would grind them under its heel and send the Brothers scurrying again, mostly to Saudi Arabia, but some to West Germany (where they would establish the cells that set the stage for Sept. 11, 2001). Others remained in Syria, driven underground, but not out of existence.[7]

But nobody contributed more than Her Majesty's Service in Britain in bringing these scattered jihadis under loosely bound organizations and making them flourish. The British protection of Islamic terrorist leaders began years ago, although it is difficult to nail down exactly when.

Radio Free Kabul was formed almost immediately after the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, by Lord Nicholas Bethell, a former lord-in-waiting to Queen Elizabeth II. Lord Bethell had served in the Mideast and Soviet sections of MI6. The Committee for a Free Afghanistan (CFA) was founded in 1981 in the aftermath of a trip by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Lord Bethell to the United States, dedicated to building support for the mujahideen. It provided funds for almost all the "Peshawar Seven" groups of mujahideen.

Osama bin Laden ran the Jihad Committee, which included the Egyptian Islamic group, the Jihad Organization in Yemen, the Pakistani al-Hadith group, the Lebanese Partisans League, the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, the Bayt-el-Imam group in Jordan, and the Islamic Group in Algeria. He had already established a bureau in London, according to reports.

According to Michael Whine's September 2005 Hudson Institute paper, "The Advance of the Muslim Brotherhood in the UK," in 1996, the first representative of the MB in Britain, Kamal el-Helbawy, an Egyptian, stated, "There are not many members here, but many Muslims in Britain intellectually support the aims of the Muslim Brotherhood." He added that at that time, the object of the MB in Britain was only to disseminate information on Islam, Islamic issues, and movements, and to rectify the distortions and misunderstandings created by "different forces against Islam." In September 1999, the MB opened a "global information centre" in London. A press notice published in Muslim News stated that it would "specialize in promoting the perspectives and stances of the Muslim Brotherhood, and [communicate] between Islamic movements and the global mass media."

In July 1998, a former British MI5 officer, David Shayler, revealed that in February 1996, British security services financed and supported a London-based Islamic terrorist group, in an attempted assassination of Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi. Then-British Foreign Secretary Malcolm Rifkind, in an interview with the British Daily Mail, sanctioned the action. Speaking to the BBC on Aug. 5, 1998, Shayler said: "We paid £100,000 to carry out the murder of a foreign head of state. That is apart from the fact that the money was used to kill innocent people, because the bomb exploded at the wrong time. In fact, this is hideous funding of international terrorism."

The Saudis complained several times to the British authorities about the activity of the expatriate Mohammed al-Massari, who called for the overthrow of the House of Saud, and asked for his extradition with particular insistence. He was rumored to be allied to Osama bin Laden, who apparently was maintaining a residence in the wealthy London suburb of Wembley. According to the same sources, London is also the headquarters of bin Laden's Advise and Reform Commission, run by Khaled al-Fawwaz.

On Nov. 17, 1997, the Gamaa-al-Islamiya group carried out a massacre of tourists in Luxor, Egypt, in which 62 people were killed. Since 1992, terrorist attacks led by this gang have claimed at least 92 lives. Yet, according to the Egyptian authorities, the leaders of this organization have been provided with political asylum in Britain, and repeated efforts to have them extradited met with stern rebuffs.

On Dec. 14, 1997, British Ambassador to Egypt David Baltherwick was summoned by Egypt's then-Foreign Minister Amr Moussa and handed an official note, demanding that Britain "stop providing a safe haven to terrorists, and cooperate with Egypt to counter terrorism." In an interview with the London Times the same day, Moussa called on Britain "to stop the flow of money from Islamic radicals in London to terrorist groups in Egypt, and to ban preachers in British mosques calling for the assassination of foreign leaders." The Times added that Moussa was "outraged by reports that £2.5 million had come from exiles in Britain to the outlawed Gamaa-al-islamiya."[8]

Or, take the case of Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the spiritual leader of the MB. He was imprisoned under King Farouq in 1949, then three times during the reign of President Nasser, until he left Egypt for Qatar in 1961. He arrived in London in 2004, according to the Muslim Association of Britain (MAB). On Aug. 11, 2004, Anthony Browne, in his column with the Spectator, titled "The Triumph of the East," pointed out that Qaradawi, who was welcomed by the leftist Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone ("Red Ken"), in his broadcast in 1999, according to the Middle East Media Research Institute, had said: "Islam will return to Europe. The conquest need not necessarily be by the sword. Perhaps we will conquer these lands without armies. We want an army of preachers and teachers who will present Islam in all languages and in all dialects."

Al-Qaradawi returned to Egypt in 2011 in the wake of the Egyptian Revolution.

Londonistan: Refuge of Islamic Terrorists

Because of the myriad of Islamic terrorist outfits that operate from Britain under the protection of MI6 and the British government, it was the French who began to call the British capital "Londonistan." In the 1990s, the French security services became alarmed and frustrated by the growing presence of Algerian Islamists who used London as a rear base from which to conduct their terrorist campaign against France. They were mostly, but by no means all, members of the Armed Islamic Group (Groupe Islamique Armée, GIA).

According to French sources, the GIA, which was responsible for the assassination of Algerian President Mohamed Boudiaf on June 29, 1992, has its international headquarters in London. Sheikh Abu Qatabda, who has recently been extradited to Jordan, and Abu Musab communicated military orders to GIA terrorists operating in Algeria and France via the London-based party organ, al-Ansar.

Sheikh Abu Qatabda was granted asylum in Britain in 1992, after he was condemned to death in Algeria for acknowledging responsibility for a bombing at the Algiers Airport. A third London-based GIA leader, Abu Fares, oversees operations against France. He was granted asylum in Britain in 1992, after he was condemned to death in Algeria for acknowledging responsibility for the same operation that killed 9 people and wounded 125 at the Algiers Airport. He was also suspected of bombing three Paris train and subway stations and an open-air market. France sought the extradition of some of the terrorists in connection with the bombings in Paris during the 1980s. The British authorities took the view, however, that they should be granted asylum, provided they had committed no crimes on British soil.

Among the Arab Islamist ideologues who had been granted asylumand in some cases, the indefinite right to stay, or even British citizenshipwas Rashid Gannouchi, who heads the Tunisian Ennahda party. Gannouchi had left Tunisia on completion of a prison sentence for terrorist offenses in 1989. After 22 years in Britain, he returned to Tunisia to take control of the Brotherhood, following the fall of President Zine el Abidin Bin Ali in 2001. In 2012, he was awarded the Royal Institute of International Affairs' prize by Prince Andrew, Duke of York, for "the successful compromises achieved during Tunisia's democratic transition."

Beside the Libyan Fighting Group members, who were sent back to Libya in 2011 to kill Qaddafi, Britain protected and allowed to flourish the Syrian expatriate Omar Bakri Fostock (aka Omar Bakri Mohammed), who, with another Syrian expatriate, Farid Kassim, founded a branch of Hizb ut-Tahrir (Islamic Liberation Party, HT) in 1986. He had arrived in Britain, after being expelled from Saudi Arabia, to where he claims he had fled from Syria after the late President Hafez al-Assad's crackdown on the MB. In Saudi Arabia he claims that he was active in another group with a similar ideology, al-Muhajiroun (The Emigrants). HT has now become an international terrorist outfit with a strong presence in Central Asia, Pakistan, and northern Lebanon.

In 2006, National Public Radio, citing a New Statesman article, pointed out that Britain was "planning" to engage with the Muslim Brotherhood. NPR said:

"Well, the memo is from a senior member of the Foreign Office's Israel, Arab, and North Africa Working Group. And it is part of the broader strategy within the British Foreign Office called 'Engaging with the Islamic World.' This person is suggesting to other various senior members within the British government that they should, indeed, engage with political Islam and engage specifically with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, and also recommending that the U.S. and EU countries do the same. There has been an MI6 study within the British government that says that there is no direct violence that is caused by the Muslim Brotherhood, although some donations are probably finding their way towards Hamas and other people...."

Finally, a glimpse of what some of the British security people think of the MB: Dr. Robert Lambert, the former head of the London Metropolitan Police's Muslim Contact Unit, wrote, in a Dec. 5, 2011 article in the New Statesman, that "Britain can be proud of how it has provided a safe haven for members and associates of the Muslim Brotherhood during the past three decades. Many escaped imprisonment and torture in countries run by corrupt dictators strongly supported by the West until the Arab spring. Now some are returning to their countries of origin to help build new democracies and bulwarks against future dictatorships in the Arab world."